


Story Time

by SparkleZombie



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 00:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30148230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleZombie/pseuds/SparkleZombie
Summary: You are a guard at Arkham Asylum, and Mister Zsasz has a story to tell you.
Kudos: 2





	Story Time

The first thing they tell you when you’re assigned to Zsasz is ‘don’t listen to him.’ 

It’s funny at first, because you’re used to the other wings, the other isolated prisoners. You got told to watch where you direct your gaze, make sure you don’t smell too strongly of any particular perfume or food, but you can listen and talk. Hell, some guys even relay messages. 

“Ivy asked how your nephew’s birthday party went.”

“Croc wants a TV in his cell for the big fight, can we swing that?” 

“Crane told me it stems from a fear of falling since I fell out of that tree when I was little…”

It’s part of the rehabilitation, you think. Underneath the crime and the costumes, most of these prisoners are still people.

‘Don’t listen to him. Don’t engage him. You can’t win.’

You think it’s weird, the level of security they have for Zsasz. He’s not super strong, he’s not mutated. He’s nearly forty, for Christ’s sake. You’ve seen the lengths they go to in order to get this scarred-up loser to his therapy hour- he’s put in a straight jacket, inside a metal cylinder, inside a cage. You saw them wheeling him in once, treating him like Hannibal fucking Lecter. You laughed. 

The rest of the day he’s in what some of your fellow guards call “the Tupperware.” It’s a cell-sized cube made of clear, thick, shatterproof plastic, situated in the middle of an old storage room in the basement. There’s an overhead light that is only turned off when Zsasz is moved out of the cell- you think it’s overkill. No way is a guy so dangerous that they can’t even turn off a light around him. 

The sliding clear plastic door used to be controlled by a retinal scan, but, and this was just a rumor you had heard, because Zsasz sweet-talked a former guard into opening the door for him, they changed it to a rolling slide door that required two guards to operate. You guess the thinking behind it is, hey, this fucker can’t possibly manipulate two guards, right?

There’s no real bed in the Tupperware, just a plastic lump protruding from the wall. No pillow or blanket because of the ‘weapon potential.’ His uniform’s a short-sleeved one-piece jumpsuit with a velcro closure, no stitches, no buttons. He has a collar with metal rings along the outside of it; three armed guards attach poles to it and lead him to the facilities and when he eats they lock him to the wall and cuff him. They have to hand feed him.

‘He can turn anything into a weapon, even your words.’

You don’t get it. You’ve dealt with the big kids. Croc, Ivy, Freeze, Maxie, Hatter, they don’t have this level of scrutiny. This level of nervousness.

‘Victor Zsasz is a monster.’

***

So far, it’s been a boring shift. Zsasz hasn’t talked to you. He’s hummed, mumbled about a song stuck in his head. Sat in the middle of the floor and seemed to meditate? And now he’s just laying there, on his back, scarred fingers laced over his chest.

“You’re new, yes? Well, not ‘new’ to this place, but ‘new’ to my security detail.”

He sits up and folds his thin legs into that, that yoga flower pose, and he’s looking at you with a smirk. 

“What got you transferred down here? Surely you didn’t endeavour to visit me, hmm? Is this a punishment?” He cackles and you think of old glass, dark and warped. “Oh, what did you do? You can tell me.”

“Shut up.”

Zsasz gasps and springs up. “You speak! And such a lovely voice!” He’s tall and gangly, the visible parts of his scarred skin taught over lean muscle. Built like a dancer, you think. He’s at the wall you’re standing in front of now, grinning. You notice several of his teeth are metal.

“Admiring the dental fixtures? Mmm.” He prods at one with his tongue- does he have scars on the underside of his fucking tongue? “The Batman took it upon himself to apply some, ah, unconventional orthodontics, years ago.”

“He punched you.”

Zsasz frowns in an exaggerated way. “What’s the point of having an expansive and expensive vocabulary if I can’t use it?” He snickers and turns his back to you. “A, ah, doctor here, he once postulated, before suddenly and mysteriously dieing, that, in addition to my predilection of self-mutilation, my tendency towards loquaciousness is a means of sexual gratification.”

You don’t want to respond. 

“That means he thought I get off from cutting myself and using big words” he growls and something cold coils in your gut. His voice changed. He sounds less like a sleepy college professor and more like someone you might run into on a bus. It creeps you out.

He’a face to face with you.

There is nothing in his eyes.

“Whaddya think, hm? You think I get off from this?” He presses a hand to the wall. Even his palm is littered with scars.

“I think you’re just another rich kid with mommy issues who kills and cuts to get some attention your dead parents never gave you, and I think you fake your body count.”

He raises his scarred eyebrows and steps back. Puts a hand to his chin. “Ahh, I think you’ve figured me out. I’m cured! You can let me out now.”

“You still killed people, you fuckin’ nutcase.”

Zsasz sighs. “No, I’ve never killed a living thing. I liberate zombies, dear.” He spreads his arms. “I help them shuffle off this mortal coil. Help ‘em leave their endless, pointless existences.”

You have to laugh at how stupid he sounds. “Nah man, you’ve killed people. Even if your brain gets fixed, and that doesn’t sound likely, there’s no fixing killing.”

He drops his arms and looks at you and you feel very small, but very brave, somehow. So you press on this apparent nerve.

“You’ve killed… I had to review your file when I got assigned. You…” He’s not moving and you’re remembering the crime scene pictures. It’s not his alleged body count that gets to you. It’s the bodies themselves. 

Suddenly he pivots, jerking, as if stuck by a taser. “Can I tell you a story?”

Before you can suggest that he fuck off he’s at the wall again, staring at you- does he ever blink? “I was following this zombie mom, you see, and she has two precious little girls. Twins, I think. Not more than five years old. Zombie mom has them in matching outfits, matching hair, all that adorable garbage.”

Zsasz makes a wheezing laugh sound that makes you feel sick.

“The mom, she’s clearly hurting. Having trouble making ends meet. I broke into the apartment a few times, you know, laid on their beds, ate their food. I try to get a clear picture of the pain these creatures are in.

“The mom, she can’t give those sweet little girls everything they want and need. But then, nearly two weeks into my watch, she gets a break. A job interview. The pay sounds amazing. I remember how happy that pitiful thing looked when she got that phone call. 

“The interview, it turned out, was fairly close to the local park, a good, safe, full of parents park, and it won’t take long, so she tells her babies, I saw her tell them, ‘you go play, I’ll be back in a flash.’ And then, ah, she leaves, she leave the little… little girls there, alone. All alone.”

He closes his eyes and groans and shivers and you want to swing the door open and shoot him.

“Those sweet little... Do you know what I did to them?”

“You sick fuc-”

“I gave them balloons!”

Zsasz laughs like a whole pack of hyenas and wheezes and coughs. “I bought them each a balloon and told them I hoped their mother got the job! Oh, oh, the look on your face…” He wipes a tear from his empty eyes. “They’re children! What did you think I would tell you? That I snapped their little necks right there, right in the park? C’mon, give me some credit.”

You are furious, but relieved. A nervous chuckle escapes you. Zsasz grins at you and you two share another little laugh.

“No no, it was that night, that night I climbed in a window and slit their throats as they slept.”

Victor smiles at you and rolls up his sleeve, showing you three scars that are fresh and scabbing over. 

“You fucking monster!”

Victor grins, bone and metal.

“I’m the only human in here, darling.”


End file.
